Month: April 2014

“The rise of the modern welfare state, for Lewis, was not real progress. It entrusts power over many to a few, ‘none perfect; some greedy, cruel, and dishonest.’ The more that people in government control our lives, the more we have to ask ‘why, this time power should not corrupt as it always has done before?’ “

In the the last three sections of the Introduction of Bureaucracy, you will see the overview of Ludwig von Mises’ thesis that government omnipotence advanced by diverting the attention of the people from government bureaucratism to corporate bureaucratism, and that the advocates of the increasing power of the state failed to understand that the market with its system of profit management does not develop bureaucratic system without government intervention. In this article, I also shared R. B. Kuiper’s essay about irreligion as the theological cause for the increasing power of the state. We learned further that focusing on justice is the primary task of the state and that the biblical concept of man is contrary to totalitarianism.

In concluding his essay, R. B. Kuiper argues that it is part of Christian duty to resist a totalitarian state. He shows us the way to stop the growing power of the state. It cannot be done through war for it leads to further growth of the state. Roman Catholicism cannot do it for its brand of totalitarianism cannot find biblical warrant. The principles of French Revolution are also not capable to defeat it for the dictatorship of the proletariat is just the opposite face of statist dictatorship. The only remaining solution is a return to the Word of God. Such return would mean that people should stop looking up to the state as the panacea to all our economic ills, that people should neither deride nor fight the state if it is doing its proper task, and that people should not trust the state, but criticize it when it is transgressing beyond the limits of its legitimate task.

Economics as a profession is in a sad state today, says Frank Hollenbeck. Is this description only limited to the US? Or does it also describe the situation of the profession all over the world as a whole? Hollenbeck raised several issues that show the unfortunate state of the porefession. Sample issues that he raised include the way special interest groups advance their advocacy, increase in monetary supply, and the impact of government spending.

In the past, economists were able to see the fallacy in using nationalist rhetoric to advance the advocacies of special interest groups. In our day, they are considered normal, and few voices that oppose them are regarded as either paranoid or mentally deranged. In the past, economists were able to dissect and expose the misconceptions of the mercantilists concerning the increase in monetary supply. Today, similar misconceptions are proudly supported by leading and reputable economists. In the past, economists knew that massive government spending was detrimental to the purchasing power of consumers. Today, it is hailed as the only way to boost economic growth. The primary difference between the economists of the past and contemporary economists is that the former are able to see both the direct and indirect effects of economic policies, whereas the latter are short-sighted, more concerned with immediate results, and have totally lost the ability to foresee the long-term impact of existing policies.

Hollenbeck ends his article by mentioning that no man can violate the law of gravity without putting his life in danger such as jumping off a building and expecting himself to remain unharmed. Likewise, no government can continually violate the law of economics without suffering destructive results in which the most vulnerable members of society are the ones sacrificed.

And so for Ludwig von Mises, simply focusing on the evils of bureaucratism is misleading. One must see beyond the symptoms and penetrate into the source, a new political system that advocates government ominipotence, and socialism is the only ideology that provides justification for totalitarianism. See how Ludwig von Mises defines this conflict:

“The main issue in present-day political struggles is whether society should be organized on the basis of private ownership of the means of production (capitalism, the market system) or on the basis of public control of the means of production (socialism, communism, planned economy). Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individual’s life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management. There is no compromise possible between these two systems. Contrary to a popular fallacy there is no middle way, no third system possible as a pattern of a permanent social order. The citizens must choose between capitalism and socialism . . . .” (Bureaucracy, 1944, p. 10).